Oregon fishing report

Willamette Valley/Metro- Dam passage at Bonneville remains good and fishery managers recently downgraded the predicted spring salmon run from well over 300,000 fish to just about 200,000 returning adults. Although the lower Columbia will remain closed to the taking of adult chinook, it opens today to angling for adipose fin-clipped steelhead, adipose fin-clipped chinook jacks (between 12 and 24 inches) and shad. The daily bag limit is two steelhead plus five adipose fin-clipped chinook jacks. Anglers are likely to intercept more salmon than steelhead this time of year. Near perfect conditions early last week contributed to a consistent catch of spring chinook from top to bottom on the Willamette River. Warmer temperatures were fine for the onset but the continued hot weather has slowed the fishing a bit. Reports are good from the Multnomah Channel but successful anglers need to know the water well. The head of the Multnomah Channel has been slow but has been putting out small numbers of fish for a slug of boats. The harbor, Willamette Park and Sellwood all are putting out small numbers for the effort. Oregon City back trollers had the best success last week, but the looming sea lions made it very challenging at times just to boat a fish. There seems to be two or three of the mammals working each popular fishing haunt from the falls on down. There is quite an abundance of sturgeon in the area below the falls and salmon anglers are incidentally catching a handful each day. While the number of summer steelhead caught on the Clackamas has dipped, springers are starting to show often enough to warrant fishing here. Many of the top guides have been spotted here and the word is out that the springers are in. With the water temperature in the high 40’s, the Clackamas is still a ways off from being prime, but with the warming trend, prime time is near. Some summers are still being taken from the upper stretch from Rivermill down to Barton and springers are being taken from the lower river favorites like Carver, the Japanese Garden, Coffee's, the Winery and High Rocks. The Sandy River is fishing well. Both spring chinook and summer steelhead are present and being caught daily. Most of the steelhead action is from Dabney Park on up to Cedar Creek, while the salmon are holding in the lower river for now. Herring and prawn trollers are still catching a few at the mouth and a handful have been taken on the drift from Oxbow Park to Lewis and Clark State Park. When fishing the lower river, be sure you are fishing over a rocky or gravel bottom. There is still plenty of silt and sand left over from the dam removal and anglers have found the rocky spots are providing higher success rates. Steelhead and salmon will not hold over a sand or silt bottom. Lower McKenzie fly fishers have been doing well on nymphs. Hatches will pick up this week with warmer weather. South Santiam levels are good and improving with steelhead and springer numbers increasing. Over 550 summer steelhead have been counted at Foster Dam. Northwest – Spring chinook are beginning to enter Tillamook Bay in good number. Weak tides focused effort near the jetty tips early this week and fish from 14 to 30 pounds have been taken recently. Charlie and Winnie Payne of Newport took 12 and 20-pounders on Monday, fishing herring on the bottom near the Coast Guard Tower on Monday. The group landed 4 hatchery springers for 6 chances with the most opportunities on the second half of the outgoing tide. Upper bay anglers are likely to score this weekend. Area rivers remain low although the color is good. Springers are likely present in fair numbers in the Trask and Wilson but the bulk of the run should remain in the bay for weekend anglers. Another rain freshet isn’t forecasted until next week. Summer steelhead should also be available in limited numbers on the Wilson and Nestucca systems. All-depth halibut seekers didn’t have much opportunity to pursue their quarry until Saturday, the last day of the first 3-day opener. Limits came easy but the fish weren’t large. No sign of significant near-shore halibut success lately but effort will ramp up as seas calm. Bottomfishers out of the mouth of the Columbia scored easy limits of rockfish off of the sunken jetty on Tuesday. Lingcod were plentiful as well but the rockfish were so thick that many had to be released before attaining your lingcod limit. The sturgeon opener on the lower Columbia was less than impressive last Saturday. Shakers were the rule and not many of those in the current high, cold water. This fishery likely won’t take off until later in June, as it did last year. Another round of minus tides begins over the weekend. Razor clam digging was excellent on the last series and will likely produce good catches again on this one. The best digging should be Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Southwest – High winds kept south coast boats at port on the all-depth halibut opener. Conditions improved to allow fishing over the past Saturday with catches of halibut reported as very good. The next all-depth opportunity is May 17-19. Rockfish catches slowed out of central Oregon ports early this week but lingcod fishing has continued to yield limits. Ocean crabbing has been fair but steady. Crabbing has been slow to fair but improving in Winchester Bay. Jetty anglers are taking good numbers of rockfish. Spring chinook catches have been fair to good on the mainstem Umpqua around Elkton. Springers are also being hooked on the lower North Umpqua. Chinook fishing is slow in Coos Bay but will pick up in coming weeks. Crabbing has been fair. Boats out of Gold Beach and Port Orford have been taking limits of lingcod and rockfish. Water on the lower Rogue is clearing, in the mid-50’s and producing regular hookups for boaters using anchovy-spinner combos. Results for chinook have been slow on the middle river despite good numbers of fish. Back-trollers are hooking springers on the upper Rogue. When boats have been able to get out of the Port Of Brookings, rockfishing has been excellent while lingcod catches have been fair to good. Ocean chinook is open but slow this early in the season. Diamond Lake historically fishes best immediately following ice-out and recent results confirm that fact. Many are taking Oregon's most generous lake limit of eight trout averaging 16 inches.